TOOLS : [SECTION] :

Have Tent, Will Travel
The ReidsGuides.com Travel Show for the week of March 7, 2005.

It's "Have Tent, Will Travel," the ReidsGuides.com Travel Show for March 7, 2005.

A Thing for Camping
I'm heading out in two weeks for a road trip across Southern Utah with my buddy Stu. And while we'll be staying mostly in cheap hotels, we do plan to camp under the stars for one night. And I do mean under the stars. I've heard that in Natural Bridges National Monument, the level of light pollution is about as low as it ever gets in the Lower 48.

I've gazed up at the night sky from similarly light-free campsites from Montana to Mediterranean islands, and it's an amazing experience. When you stare at the stars without any man-made light dimming their brilliance, you begin to understand why the ancients connected those dots and saw pictures in the sky, and how they were able to read the stories of the gods writ upon the vast canvas of the heavens.

I guess it goes without saying that I've got a thing for camping--and not just for stargazing purposes and waxing poetic. I'll camp out while even I'm traveling across Europe, even in places where most tourists stick to hotels.

For one thing, camping is a heck of a lot cheaper than most lodging options. It generally costs anywhere from $15 to $30 for two people and a tent, sometimes a wee bit more if you have a campervan. Keep in mind when you're perusing prices that there are separate charges per person, for the site itself, for the tent, and for the car, so that €5 price tag ends up ringing in more around €25--which is still a phenomenal bargain.

What's more, you also get to make friends with all sorts of interesting Europeans--and by "interesting," I mean that German women campers often wander around the campground topless.

But beyond the ogling, it truly is a chance to hang out with some bona fide Europeans in a totally non-touristy context, sharing travel advice along with your wine and pickled wieners, making plans with the folks in the tent next door to take a short hike together in the Black Forest next morning, and just generally trying not to stare at the exposed chest of the wife of your new friend Gunther.

Fact is, some of my favorite European memories came from camping.

I remember once watching a brilliant meteor shower from the banks of the Thames, hundreds of shooting stars streaking the skies just up-river from the bright lights of London.

On another occasion, when the instructions in the camp laundry room were posted only in German, my family battled a seemingly broken washing machine--which turned out to be, in fact, a dryer, which is why our clothes came out very warm,   very dry, and full of soap.

Europe even has urban campgrounds. Several times, we were lucky enough to enjoy a sunset panorama over Florence because we had arrived at Campeggio Michelangelo early enough to secure one of the sites along the front edge of this vast parking they call a campground.

There was one European camping experience, though, that truly stuck with me.

Babes in the Woods
When I was 13 and living in Rome, I was a boy scout in Troop 236.

Now, a lot of the boys in the troop were diplomat brats, or the children of CEOs or army officers, and others who, in general, carry more clout than painting professors--though Dad did have mucho clout when it came to the troop, since he was Scoutmaster.

Through the connection of some boy's father, we got permission to go camping one weekend in a national park in the Appennine Mountains, a preserve that was normally severly off-limits to the general public. We had a grand ol' time, hiking in the forest, learning to make spaghetti alla carbonara with pancetta brought by an Italian boy and powdered egg brought by a military brat, then setting up our tents on the soft carpet of needles that lay thick beneath the pines of the forest.

At some point in the middle of the night, we were awakened by this horrible crashing noise and throaty grunting sounds coming from the inky blackness of the forest.

"Quick!" Yelled an Italian father who was on the trip. "Up! Up! Everybody, quick. Up!" We stuck our heads out of our tent flaps, and saw the excited Italian father was dancing sideways around his own tent, apparently, um, watering the plot. "Pee around the tents!" He shouted at us as he finished and zipped up.

We all looked at each other at a loss, then at him with a mixture of curiosity and fear. The grunting shuffles and underbrush crashing were getting closer.

"Urinate around the tents. Quickly!" The Italian father kept saying. "It is the wild boars looking for truffles!"

We--at least the non-Italians amongst us--weren't entirely sure what "truffles" were. But I had seen pictures of wild boars with their ridiculous tusks and sneering lips, and had just been reading Greek myths in school in which several heroes were gored to death by boars. I found myself hoping that, whatever truffles were, they didn't look, or smell, like a frightened boy scout.

Now I didn't want to be mistaken in the dark for a tasty boarish treat, so I dutifully zipped down my fly to help protect my pup tent. Luckily, there were several people to each tent, and we were pretty darn scared, so between our bladders and our fear, together we managed to make a full circle.

Back inside our tents, bladders exhausted and wide awake, we inched together into a pile of zipped-up sleeping bags huddled in the very center of the tent floor, listening to the rustling, grunting, and thrashing sounds come closer.

Soon it was everywhere, a desperate and earthy clatter all around us. We imagined the nylon sides of the tent were billowing from hot boarish breath and being brushed against by bristly flanks, and we huddled closer together still. I wondered if the boar outside my tent could smell the bacon on my breath from our spaghetti alla carbonara, and worried it might make him mad.

Eventually the ruckus moved off and faded into the forest. The night turned quiet, and we eventually drifted to sleep whispering about what might have been and giggling from relief.

Next morning, I crawled out of my tent to a scene of utter devastation.

The quiet carpet of pine needles that had blanketed our patch of forest floor the night before had vanished under a riot of black, loamy soil. The ground was turned up helter skelter to a depth of about six inches, leaving a clumpy tangle of earth and broken rootlings and shattered sticks and bent pine needles. The mangled earth ran all the way up to an invisible line, inscribed in the dirt, that made a rough circle around each tent.

In the years since, I've learned just what it is boars love so much about truffles. I've also learned, when camping, to go to bed with a full bladder. Just in case.

There are a couple of good web guides to campgrounds across Europe. One of the best--or at least biggest--is eurocampings.net. You can find a link to this and about two dozen other European campsite directories on our website. just go to reidsguides.com, click on lodgings, and then on lodging options--or you can take the virtual shortcut of just typing in www.beyondhotels.net. Click on camping.

Weekly Deals
And now, on to everybody's favorite part, one of the week's best travel deals.

Now this one isn't about camping per se, it's about getting you over to europe so you can take advantage of Europe's cheap campgrounds.

Two major airlines are having fare sales on flights to Europe.

So if you want Paris in the springtime--and there is a campground on the banks of the Seine River--book at northwest by march 9 for a $460 roundtrip fare out of Boston--or head to Amsterdam from New York for $420, or from DC to Venice for $570. But you have to book my March 9 for departures between April 1 and 22. You have to return by May 22 at the latest; and I should point out that weekend flights are costlier. Visit nwa.com for details.

The other airline sale is from US Airways, which from March 28 to April 30 will send you from New York to London for $300 roundtrip, Denver to Rome for $598, or DC to Madrid for $474. There are plenty more fares available on both of these sales, but for the US Airways deal you must book by March 13.

And remember, you can get Podcasts of a new great travel deal every day (well, ever weekday) by signing up o the Daily Deal at www.reidsguides.com.

Q&A

And finally, the part of the show where you get to talk back. To keep things topical, there's a reader in San Clemente, CA who asks:

Is it possible to rent a small RV in Europe to travel from one country to another?

Ah, RVing. When I was 11 to 13 years old, I lived in Rome, Italy, and when I wasn't in school, I traveled with my family around Europe in a hippie-orange pop-top VW campervan. Heck, for a few months we even lived in the thing--parked at Campeggio Flaminio on the outskirts of Rome--while we were between apartments.

Our safety-orange steed sported a tempermental sink, a hilariously dinky engine puttering along at the back that would have trouble motivating a lawn mower let alone drag my family up the side of an Alp, and a moldy canvas pop-top where I had to sleep in at night yet which my parents refused to let me ride in whilst cruising down the Authobahn.

God, I loved that silly, unwieldy vehicle.

We bought ours off a bulletin board at my school, but if you're just looking to rent, try a company called Overseas Motorhome Tours at www.omtinc.com.

One of those pop-top-type campervans--which sleeps two people below, plus one or two smaller chaps up in the tent on top--rents for around $60 to $75 per day in winter. That price rises to $90 to $115 per day in the height of summer.

A larger Winnebago-style RV sleeping four to five people will run you around $70 to $90 per day in low season, $100 to $130 in high season.

European roads are narrow and winding, and gas incredibly expensive, so never rent anything longer than six meters, which is about 20 feet.

Also, read the fine print: there's usually a ridiculous "service fee" of $100 to $175 or so added to the overall price, and they usually require CDW insurance--which tacks on another $30 or so per day. Make sure taxes (called "VAT" in Europe) are included in the price quote, since they can run as high as 19 percent.

As a general rule, rentals in Germany tend to be the cheapest, though once you pick it up, of course, you can drive the RV anywhere. However, check first about any taking a rental into any Eastern European countries; sometimes there are restrictions.

And you should also know that British rentals often tack on a fee if you take the vehicle to the continent.

As with the camping material, I've got loads more info and links on this subject at reidsguides.com in the "Lodging Options" section.

You can send your questions, or comments, to ask "at" reidsguides.com.

And that's the Travel Show for this week, brought to you by the award-winning ReidsGuides.com, the Internet's best one-stop site for planning a trip to Europe. That's www.ReidsGuides.com.

And remember: spending excess dollars on a trip only serves to insulate you from the people and the cultures around you. To travel on a budget is to travel richly indeed.